Luxury

It wasn’t until I went looking for the heron rookery that I realized it had been too long since I walked in the woods alone, for what I might call “spiritual reawakening.” You might call it peace. You might not call it anything. But to me, this winter felt longer and more bitter than it really was, and the ‘world was too much with me,’ to paraphrase Wordsworth. Not just the world, but some friends passed on, and it seemed like the grim reaper had been swinging his scythe nearby. I needed some nature.

The forest is an old friend, my oldest friend, in fact. Being solo in a woodland is for me a walk among comfortable companions. It’s also a window to the universe, vast, aloof, incomprehensible. It reveals all our efforts, both good and evil, as scurrying desperation. Thus, it returns our universe to its proper perspective.

Late March. The Friedman Forest is bare and still, life audible only in Bebbington Brook, which burbles along cheerfully through its still brown ecosystem, participating in the great circle of Earth’s hydrology. It’s not too soon for some bright marsh marigolds. Needed signs of renewal and hope. The redirected blue trail now takes a short uphill loop away from the brook, saving me from clambering down the ledge, and at this time of year yields a bonus view south across its marsh. Only the wish to walk in a loop keeps me from using the blue trail along this waterway every time at Friedman.

When outside, I’m more in tune with the essential rhythms of the universe. They are all song cycles, dances. The water cycle, the long slow geologic cycle, the solar system, all the way to our blood circulation. Orbits. Night and day. Seasons. The loop trail, of course. Life and death and life. Good and evil? I think that one’s on us. I try to feel my energy ebbing and flowing, changing along with the weather and the daylight. You do whatever you can do to increase awareness.

How about this: to be aware is to not take anything for granted. In Aflame, Pico Iyer suggests “luxury is defined by all you don’t need to long for.” And he quotes Leonard Cohen’s marvelous thought: “freedom from answers.” That’s what has been bothering me all winter, I now see. I’ve been longing for answers to the problems that have newly befallen the earth and its people. This insight is a product of a book, plus time, space, fresh air and running water. Contrary to Joni Mitchell’s song, I do know what I’ve got…and it’s going. “Who are YOU to think you can save the world?” you ask. I guess I just want to – badly. I’d like to be able to say I did everything I could in my four score years and whatever.

Out here worries fade away. One foot in front of the other. “George, you can take only one step at a time” remind my woody old friends. The great wetland comes into view, the birthplace of Stonehouse Brook and many a great blue heron. There are only 5-6 nests in the heron trees this spring, and I see just two birds silhouetted against the sky. There will be plenty of fish and frogs to go around.

I sit and watch at the water’s edge. Clouds pass by. Spring peepers call to the left, red-winged blackbirds to the right. Ah, balance and rhythm, and there is a blissful harmony from the wind, what the Dine (Navaho) call “hozho.” As Iyer says, “We all need to forget who we are.” Good idea. I get lost sitting and daydreaming. It’s going to be hard to get up from my pampered perch on this beaver-fallen log, solicitously set at the perfect height for a sitting human. Luxurious. How’d they do that?

Happy Belated Earth Day!